Prairie Protection Colorado (PPC) has been working with Stonegate residents to save approximately 30 surviving black-tailed prairie dogs from a recent fumitoxin poisoning in their neighborhood. The Stonegate Village Metropolitan District had every intention to poison these survivors and "finish off" this colony until residents got involved and began to fight for their relocation rather than their annihilation. A new home for these survivors has been found in Sedalia Colorado and the owners of this land would love to welcome these prairie dogs to a healthy and beautiful colony currently existing at this location.

In Colorado, it is a state law that a relocation permit be filed with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and that it gets approval in order to save prairie dog colonies from annihilation. Of course no such permit is needed for a property owner to kill these colonies and in fact killing this keystone species is encouraged by CPW, an agency that defines prairie dogs as a "pest." PPC submitted this permit over 40 days ago and has still not received a formal approval or denial. This is because CPW is gathering as much opposition to this relocation as possible in order to have a legitimate reason to deny the permit.

PPC has been in continual contact with CPW since filing this permit application and they have ignored our requests for information on the status of our permit. In filing an Open Records Request, PPC found that both CPW and the United States Forest Service (USFS) are working together to ensure this relocation doesn't happen. The Forest Service borders the land where the prairie dogs will be moved to and CPW has insisted that the Forest Service is a determining factor in the permit decision of this relocation to private land.

The excuse both CPW and the USFS are using to deny this permit is that the land we are trying to relocate the Stonegate prairie dogs to was historical Gunnison prairie dog habitat, not black-tailed prairie dog habitat, although no Gunnison prairie dogs have ever existed at this location in recorded history. They are also fabricating their concern (given that they will certainly be poisoned to death if they aren't relocated) that the Stonegate prairie dogs won't survive in this climate. Contrary to this unsubstantiated nonsense, CPW has already approved a prior relocation of black-tailed prairie dogs to this land in 2015 and these prairie dogs are currently thriving after successfully birthing 3 generations of healthy prairie dog pups. In order for this colony to continue their biological stability, they are in need of biodiversity, which these survivors would bring to help enhance the land and the colony currently living there.

Please help us illustrate to Colorado Parks and Wildlife that the public won't stand for these hateful attempts to poison the surviving prairie dogs at Stonegate by signing this petition that insists these prairie dogs are given a chance to survive. We are fed up with CPW abusing their power and directing that authority to ensure that prairie dogs are destroyed, even when there is a clear and viable alternative. Please sign this petition and help us illustrate that this insane killing of a keystone species must stop!! Relocate, don't exterminate!